Period prevalence of self-reported headache in the general population in Germany from 1995–2005 and 2009: results from annual nationwide population-based cross-sectional surveys

The Journal of Headache and Pain

Research Article

Bernhard Aicher¹  Janin Köppel¹  Roland Schneider¹  Steffanie Förderreuther²  Andreas Straube²  Thomas Eggert²  Gunther Haag³  Stefan Möller⁴ 

[1] Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany;Deptment Neurology, Klinikum Großhadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany;Ipsos Operations GmbH, Mölln, Germany;Michael-Balint-Klinik, Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Germany;

关键词: Headache;    Prevalence;    General population;    Age;    Gender;    Epidemiology;    Income;    Education;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1129-2377-14-11

 received in 2013-02-06, accepted in 2013-02-06,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAlthough primary headache is the most frequent neurological disorder and there is some evidence that the prevalence rates have increased in recent years, no long-term data on the annual prevalence of headache are available for Germany. The objective of the study was therefore to obtain long-term data on the period prevalence of headache in the general population in Germany by means of population-based cross-sectional annual surveys (1995–2005 and 2009).MethodsThese surveys were conducted as face-to-face paper-and-pencil interviews from 1995 through 2004, and from 2005 onwards as computer-aided personal interviews. The reported headaches were self-diagnosed by the interviewees. Per year, approximately 640 trained interviewers interviewed between 10,898 and 12,538 German-speaking individuals aged 14 and older and living in private households in the whole of Germany (response rate: 67.4% and 73.1%, gross samples: 16,026 to 18,176 subjects). A total of more than 146,000 face-to-face interviews were analyzed.ResultsThe one-year headache prevalence remained stable over the entry period, with 58.9% (95%CI 57.7–60.1) to 62.5% (95%CI 61.3–63.7) (p=0.07). Women showed consistently higher prevalence rates than men (females: 67.3 (95%CI 65.7–68.9) to 70.7% (95%CI 69.1–72.3), males: 48.4% (95%CI 46.5–50.3) to 54.3% (95%CI 52.4–56.2)), and both sexes showed a bell-shaped age dependence with peaks in the 30–39 age group. A stable slightly higher prevalence was observed in urban versus rural areas (p<0.0001), and there was also a significant trend towards higher prevalence rates in groups with a monthly household income larger than 3,500 € (p=0.03).ConclusionThe overall headache prevalence remained stable in Germany in the last 15 years.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Straube et al.; licensee Springer. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.